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The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store: A Novel Hardcover – August 8, 2023

by James McBride (Author)
4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 48,560 ratings
Amazon Charts #17 this week
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THE RUNAWAY NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK

FROM ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE'S 100 MOST INFLUENTIAL PEOPLE OF 2024

NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY NPR/FRESH AIR, WASHINGTON POST, THE NEW YORKER, AND TIME MAGAZINE

ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2023

“A murder mystery locked inside a Great American Novel . . . Charming, smart, heart-blistering, and heart-healing.” —Danez Smith, The New York Times Book Review

“We all need—we all deserve—this vibrant, love-affirming novel that bounds over any difference that claims to separate us.” —Ron Charles, The Washington Post

From James McBride, author of the bestselling Oprah’s Book Club pick Deacon King Kong and the National Book Award–winning The Good Lord Bird, a novel about small-town secrets and the people who keep them

In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side and shared ambitions and sorrows. Chicken Hill was where Moshe and Chona Ludlow lived when Moshe integrated his theater and where Chona ran the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store. When the state came looking for a deaf boy to institutionalize him, it was Chona and Nate Timblin, the Black janitor at Moshe’s theater and the unofficial leader of the Black community on Chicken Hill, who worked together to keep the boy safe.

As these characters’ stories overlap and deepen, it becomes clear how much the people who live on the margins of white, Christian America struggle and what they must do to survive. When the truth is finally revealed about what happened on Chicken Hill and the part the town’s white establishment played in it, McBride shows us that even in dark times, it is love and community—heaven and earth—that sustain us.

Bringing his masterly storytelling skills and his deep faith in humanity to The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, James McBride has written a novel as compassionate as Deacon King Kong and as inventive as The Good Lord Bird.
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  1. Print length
    400 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Riverhead Books
  4. Publication date
    August 8, 2023
  5. Dimensions
    6.32 x 1.28 x 9.33 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0593422945
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0593422946
  8. See all details
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  1. “Light is only possible through dialogue between cultures, not through rejection of one or the other.”
    Highlighted by 133 Kindle readers
  2. Chona had smelled not a hot dog but the future, a future in which devices that fit in one’s pocket and went zip, zap, and zilch delivered a danger far more seductive and powerful than any hot dog, a device that children of the future would clamor for and become addicted to, a device that fed them their oppression disguised as free thought.
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From the Publisher

Amazon's #1 Book of the Year Pick. THE HEAVEN AND EARTH GROCERY STORE by James McBride
This is his best book, says Ann Patchett. Heart-healing, says NYTBR. Vibrant, love-affirming, The WP
One of the best novels I've read this year, says NPR about The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store
A wondrous ode says TIME. A stunning page turner, says REAL SIMPLE.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

An Amazon Best Book of August 2023: In Deacon King Kong, James McBride spun a story of a Brooklyn neighborhood filled with beguiling and booze-filled characters that showed just how vital communities can be—and he’s done it again with The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store. Except this time, we’re in Chicken Hill, a small town in Pennsylvania, where Black, Jewish, and European immigrants, rich and poor, old and young, collide—defending, fighting, entertaining, feeding, and sheltering one another. This cacophonous melody of characters with all of their schemes and dreams reveal how home is where you make it—and how all of these “outsiders” are anything but. With spunky detail, McBride masterfully makes you feel like you’re part of the neighborhood, that these are your neighbors, your friends, and enemies, drawing you in, so that you, too, know the secrets they keep, the grudges they hold, and kindness they offer. Chock full of the social, racial, and ethnic politics of a small town, The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store is another irresistible stand-out from McBride.—Al Woodworth, Amazon Editor

Review

Praise for The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store:

“I keep thinking every time I read one of his books, ‘That’s his best book.’ No. THIS is his best book.” —Ann Patchett

“This is one of those novels that becomes a part of you. It’s a great book. Every character is rich; every detail is rich. I can’t recommend this one highly enough. He’s a great author and I think this is his best work.” —Harlan Coben

“He writes about deep American wounds with love, rage, and a sense of wit that flies like a falcon in large leaping circles, riding the invisible winds of history.” —Ethan Hawke

“With this story, McBride brilliantly captures a rapidly changing country, as seen through the eyes of the recently arrived and the formerly enslaved . . . And through this evocation, McBride offers us a thorough reminder: Against seemingly impossible odds, even in the midst of humanity’s most wicked designs, love, community and action can save us.” —The New York Times Book Review

“The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store is one of the best novels I’ve read this year. It pulls off the singular magic trick of being simultaneously flattening and uplifting.” —NPR

“[A] tour de force . . . [a] mesmerizing, moving, almost magical tale . . . [McBride] writes sentences and paragraphs that swing like jazz melodies.” —The Associated Press

“Classic McBride: He doesn’t shy away from bold statements about the national catastrophes of race and xenophobia, and he always gives us a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down. The sugar is McBride’s spitfire dialogue and murder-mystery-worthy plot machinations; his characters’ big personalities and bigger storylines; his wisecracking, fast-talking humor; and prose so agile and exuberant that reading him is like being at a jazz jam session. . . . Reading McBride just feels good—we are comforted and entertained, and braced for the hard lessons he also delivers.” —The Atlantic

"Sharp and nimble and warm as a wool hat, James McBride’s prose seems to transcend all earthly concerns, allowing him to write with compassion, humor and authority." —The Philadelphia Inquirer
 
“A story of community, care, and the lengths to which we'll go for justice, McBride's tale is a wondrous ode to the strength of humanity in a small town.” —Time Magazine

“Enchanting . . . [a] rich, carefully drawn portrait of a Depression-era community of African Americans and Jewish immigrants as they live, love, fight, and, of course, work.” —The Boston Globe

“McBride . . . would never advance any of his books as candidates for the Great American Novel. . . . I’d like to make a case, though, for Deacon King Kong and, now, The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store as better contenders for the 21st-century GAN than many other, more vaunted specimens. . . . In the words of Walt Whitman (an American writer McBride often brings to mind), they contain multitudes.” —Slate

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Riverhead Books (August 8, 2023)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 400 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0593422945
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0593422946
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.3 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.32 x 1.28 x 9.33 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 48,560 ratings

About the author

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James McBride

James McBride

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James McBride is the author of the award-winning New York Times bestseller, The Color of Water. A former reporter for The Washington Post and People magazine, McBride holds a Masters degree in journalism from Columbia University and a B.A. from Oberlin College.

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Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
4.4 out of 5
48,560 global ratings
Best book of the year, and one of the best I have ever read!!
5 Stars
Best book of the year, and one of the best I have ever read!!
One of the best books I have EVER read!! It's about two marginalized groups of people that wirk together to right a wrong. I fell in love with Moshe, Chona, Nate, and Dodo. I didn't want it to end. Highly, highly recommend!!!
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Top reviews from the United States

M. Rossman
5.0 out of 5 stars Great story telling
Reviewed in the United States on May 7, 2024
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Wonderful characters and plot development. All aspects pulled together in this period piece which is written well and fulfilling. I’ll continue reading McBride’s books.
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Erika Tunson
4.0 out of 5 stars 4.5 Stars for The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store (if I could give a half)!
Reviewed in the United States on January 25, 2024
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The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store poignant look at relationships, redemption, racism and the American dream. The author, James McBride introduces us to a series of characters living in Pottstown, Pennsylvania and surrounding areas, focusing on the residents of a community called Chicken Hill in the 1930s. Chicken Hill is home to Pottstown’s Jewish immigrants, Blacks coming from the South during The Great Migration and immigrants from other European countries. The Heaven & Earth grocery store is owned by a Jewish couple, Chona and Moshe and serves the residents of Chicken Hill. The novel is mostly centered around a 12 year old deaf boy named Dodo, but each character introduced (and there are a lot) also has a story. I gave 4.5 stars because the book has a slow start and it is hard to keep the characters straight, but stick with it! As the book progresses and there is an incident involving Dodo, the characters and their stories begin to connect and the result is an emotional, touching, sometimes infuriating, engrossing story. McBride tells the story in an interesting way with complex dialogue and character development through flashbacks and memories that explain how and why they are the way they are as the events with Dodo begin to unfold and every character is involved or becomes involved in some way. I both read and sometimes listened to The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store and enjoyed both.
62 people found this helpful
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switterbug/Betsey Van Horn
5.0 out of 5 stars It does move heaven and earth for the reader
Reviewed in the United States on August 26, 2023
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James McBride is an accomplished saxophonist/jazz musician. I knew that going into the book. (Oh, digression--did you know that he also played with the band, The Remainders? That’s a band with other writers like Amy Tan, Dave Barry, Barbara Kingsolver, Stephen King, Maya Angelou and several others who played for charity and fundraising). Anyway, I mention his musicianship because I see it all over the pages of The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store.

This is the first book I’ve read by McBride (definitely more to come), so pardon my schoolgirlish, giggly first crush for the way that his writing lifts me up, how his words and characters opened my heart, only to break it, and then put it back together in a most absolute and tender way. James McBride is a kind, gentle soul, and his writing reflects this—his ability to bring the world together in a novel. He honors humanity. We are all connected, and this author compels that naturally from his characters. Now, how great is that, yeah?

I want to put this in your hands and promise you a magnificent reading experience. It starts off in a shaggy dog kind of way, with an ensemble of characters, several who possess whimsical names like Fatty, Big Soap, Monkey Pants, Dodo. And their names fit flawlessly to their nature. The story starts with a 1972 prologue—a human skeleton is found in an old abandoned well, and then the body of the story begins in 1936 in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, a place called Chicken Hill, where Jews, immigrants, and Black folks lived side by side, sometimes in harmony, other times in discord, but here’s the thing—the goodness of people, the kindness of their hearts—that is what ultimately rises to the top.

For the story to unfold, there has to be some sinister aspects, too—aren’t we still fighting the fight of ignorance, bigotry, corruption, meanness? But, in the McBride world, well, we also follow the long stretch of yarn as it wends around this way and that, through streets and backyards, dirt roads, onto hills and a shul and a church, through tunnels and a dance hall. And The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store.

I don’t need to rehash the plot, but there are a few fun facts about this book worth mentioning in a review. Such as, there are an abundance of characters introduced early on, and then again later on, before the plot actually launches. That’s the shaggy part. We don’t get to the plot too quickly—instead, Mcbride takes his time, builds the characters. They are already leaping off the pages by the time the plot rolls in.

There are subplots, too, but in the end, they all weave their chords and come together. McBride may slow your roll at first, but it’s a winning bonanza of breadth and depth, from the smallest detail to the broadest design. Scenes that seem initially inconsequential become key notes later on.

Early on, we meet the arresting Jewess, Chona. Chona is an unforgettable female protagonist—I’m keeping her in my journal of best. female. characters. ever. She is handicapped with a limp—but her limp doesn’t stop her strength of purpose, her fierce dignity, her bounteous benevolence, her gentle grace, and her consummate integrity. You will fall in love with her, just like Moshe, the theater and dance hall owner, did. Moshe and Chona dared to welcome change and inclusivity to their part of the world.

At this time, in the 1930s, Black people were almost exclusively cast in menial jobs. But Moshe books Black jazz bands to play at his theater, and successfully includes all tribes together at the dance hall, who “frolicked and laughed, dancing as if they were birds enjoying flight for the first time.” Chona runs the grocery store, and extends credit to anyone who can’t afford to pay; she rarely keeps a record of their debt. The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store may lose money, but it is rich in goodwill and kindness.

Back to this being like a musical book—a jazzy book. Jazz music conjures that raspy, soulful, edgy flavor, blended from a mix of cultures and harmonies. McBride embraces those diverse, insistent, zingy, soul-stirring rhythms and blues into the narrative threads of his novel. I can hear the swing and the chase, the boogie and the blues, the sounds that go everywhere at once and jelly roll the story within a complex set of fusion and feelings. It’s also just a damned good story!

The narrative pulls you here and there, up and down, and when you meet Dodo, the sweet and barely teenaged deaf kid, your protective instincts will wrap yourself around him and never want to let him go. And, when Dodo meets Monkey Pants—well, this right there—the heart of the novel that will break you in pieces.

At times, I had a wellspring of tears—not just for joy or anguish. Sure, comedy and tragedy fill these pages. But McBride’s natural humanity and gentle nature is the colossal, phenomenal heart of the book. The author steps aside, he doesn’t ever intrude. The core of the narrative are the characters. Their cacophony becomes a coda for living large.

This tale made me want to be better, to do better, to open my eyes to all the missed connections, to fix the broken chords and forge new ones, and seek eternally to strengthen them. We are humanity, we are the essential substance to add love to the world, one modest good deed at a time. That is The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store.
962 people found this helpful
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Jerri K. Kay-phillips
5.0 out of 5 stars Wow…Just Wow!
Reviewed in the United States on May 5, 2024
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Dang it, James McBride has done it again! Had me smiling, laughing, crying, learning, and staying up way past my bedtime to read this amazing novel. What a triumph of love, selflessness, people helping others when there is nothing (obvious) to gain, but it’s the right thing to do. This book will take you through every emotion. It is a beautiful piece of literature that captures a seldom-discussed piece of American history. You will not be disappointed!
2 people found this helpful
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Joyce Pryor
5.0 out of 5 stars Riveting and Beautiful
Reviewed in the United States on April 4, 2024
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This book was a slow start for me, and although it was flush with interesting characters, I became enmeshed with the story when the character of Dodo was introduced. This is a story about America, about the human capacity to love and see people for who they are, it is a lesson in diversity and all of its components. I particularly loved the character of Shona and wish there were more people like her that embodied her spirit and grace along with her husband Moshe. The interesting dynamics of those that lived on the hill, the low country, and the immigrants the came to live in Pottstown PA, is a wonderful and interesting insightful ode to American history and I loved it! As for Monkey Pants, we all need friends like him. McBride’s explanation on why he wrote the book was incredibly interesting and should not be overlooked.
18 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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magdalena kuhn
5.0 out of 5 stars Rich in history, style, love and life
Reviewed in Canada on April 18, 2024
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This was a book club choice, I was uncertain about after reading some negative reviews. Caught me by surprise, and enjoyed every page. Glad to have read on Kindle to check meanings of many words. The book could have been meaningful in 2024 as it was in 1920+. Rich characters, descriptions of places which you can hear and smell. Long time since I have read such a quality writing. It brought me to small European places where growing up, the language and spoken word with incredible humour in happy or difficult times was familiar and alive to me.
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Uwe Meller
5.0 out of 5 stars An absolute delight!
Reviewed in Mexico on February 17, 2024
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An intertwined story about negroes, jews and whites. James McBride knows all three very well , he is Jewish and Black , presumably with a white Jewish mother. All the characters are well fleshed out with dialog befitting the times. A wonderful find.
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DS
5.0 out of 5 stars Danke!
Reviewed in Germany on April 15, 2024
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A necessary step in the right direction. Many thanks and do keep going. Don‘t let us give up. never. never.
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Harvey21st Century
5.0 out of 5 stars A Terrific Read!
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 12, 2024
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I was enthralled by this story and felt it was so life-like that I found myself looking through maps to see the locations mentioned.
At the same time I had to check back here and there to remind myself who was who but that’s just me. I should have focussed more earlier on rather than rushing through the story.
Nonetheless I recommend this book.
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Mengozzi Alessandro
5.0 out of 5 stars Plain and simple... l'America che fa fatica ad amalgamarsi
Reviewed in Italy on April 2, 2024
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Una scrittura veloce e ricca, piena di liste scoppiettanti e giochi di parole. Inglese rotto e slang, echi di italiano ed yiddish. Una trama che parte lenta e accelera progressivamente tra tubi dell'acquedotto da ricollegare nei sotterranei di una città di provincia e un ragazzo nero, orfano e sordo, da liberare dal sopruso di un manicomio infernale, e dalle grinfie di un infermiere pedofilo. L'hanno rinchiuso perché ha salvato l'ebrea dell'Emporio della Terra e del Cielo, malata, generosa e giusta, dal tentativo di violenza del medico bianco affiliato al Ku Kulx Klan.
Una rassegna incredibile di personaggi: buoni e cattivi in ogni schieramento, ebrei (romeni, lituani...), neri, italiani, polacchi, irlandesi, tedeschi, più o meno irriducibili al melting pot nord-americano, che è di volta in volta pregiudizio, diversità, solidarietà tra minoranze, arroganza dei bianchi....
"White folks' laws... The minute you leave the room, the next white fella comes along and the law is how _he_ says it is... The law in this land is what the white man says it is, mister. Plain and simple."
C'è l'America che fatica a fondersi e amalgamarsi, mentre in Europa si comincia a scappare dal nazionalsocialismo di Hitler. L'America delle armi, della bestemmia del Dio con noi, del sangue e della guerra.
"American history is not meant to be pretty. It is plain. It is simple. It is strong and truthful. Full of blood. And guts. And war. — Iron, — the mayor announced...,— is what made this town great. We are the cannon makers. The gun makers. The steelmakers. The blood! The guts! The glory! God is on our side! —"
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